Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wly_cdgr 1959 days ago
They are not so unmeritocratic as all that. Soft skills are a key part of merit.
2 comments

It is much more common to over value social skills than to under value them though, as you are biased in favour of those you like. At some point someone has to produce something of value, and having tons of people around whose only good quality are their great social skills doesn't help, they are leeches in that scenario and their social skills makes them hard to remove. They create similar inefficiency problems as the people who lack social skills entirely and sit on their own writing a huge messy system only they understand. Replacing competent people with likeable people is a common way for companies to rot.

(I know you said soft skills, but the poster you responded to talked about stuff closer to social skills than soft skills.)

Knowing you can rely on somebody to understand and handle a problem is what matters in an organization.

HOW they get it done is less important. Knowing WHO is most capable and whether the task should be automated is sometimes more important than implementing a solution yourself.